


The Wife and the Mistress

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not like THAT. </p><p>When River Song meets a REAL Time Lord psychopath...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wife and the Mistress

“Why, Doctor,” Missy purred, raising one eyebrow. “You’re an animal. Honestly, with a _human_? What were you thinking?” She had his wife in a headlock, and if it had been anyone else, the Doctor might be worried.

But she was _River_. No worries there. Except maybe for Missy’s well-being.

“Look a bit closer, aye?” The Doctor smirked at the pair of them. River winked. “She’s not human. Not entirely, are ye, my wee psychopath?” He felt himself grin. _Only River Song..._ “Also, she has a gun. Very good with it too. Shouldn’t like that; kinda do a bit.”

“And,” River said in a grim sort of voice, visibly startling Missy; his old friend wasn’t accustomed to putative humans being able to speak in these sorts of circumstances. “He’s not the only one consorting with humans. What of Lucy Saxon?”

She flipped Missy over her shoulder, reversing their positions so now it was she with the older Time Lady in a choke hold. Suddenly she wasn’t joking anymore, the Doctor realised. River was angry, properly angry, at what the Master-that-was had done to Lucy Saxon.

What he had made of her.

Because the Master had made Lucy into the psychopath that River herself was often called. 

That made River very dangerous, not that she wasn't always. And as much as the Doctor loved and hated the Master or Missy or whatever she was called in this now, that emotion paled in comparison to how he felt about River Song.

“River...” he began, but she interrupted.

“Don’t fret, sweetie,” she said, ignoring Missy’s slight shudder except to tighten her grip. “I won’t hurt her. Much. Not enough to make her regenerate, anyway.”

“Now, River, ye needn’t actually _torture_ her, not like...”

“Like she tortured you, my love? Or Jack Harkness? Or Lucy Saxon and the Joneses? Whyever not?” The Doctor didn’t like the look in her eye. She looked very on edge, almost as though she were a...

“Because, my wee wife, _you’re_ not really a psychopath.” He said it quietly, but he held her gaze until she looked away.

Missy closed her eyes, and for just a moment she looked... sorry. Ashamed.

That wouldn’t last long.

So he’d best take advantage while it lasted.

“Let her go, River.”

She sighed. And let Missy go.

The Time Lady mouthed the words _thank you_ at the Doctor, pressed a button at her wrist, and disappeared.

“Why her, River? Of all the villains in all the times in the entire universe, why Missy?” He thought he knew. She'd have lived through the Year That Never Was, as Mels, young and scared and brainwashed. And, with the Time Lord DNA, she might well have remembered the Year after the reset. He wouldn't wish that Year on Daleks, much less on River Song.

And River didn’t answer, just set her mouth in that tight line that meant _spoilers_ to the Doctor.

He didn’t like what that implied, and it was his turn to sigh.

“When are you, my love? Or is that spoilers?”

“Bollocks to the spoilers. Are you all right?”

That fetched the ghost of a grin. And then she held out a hand to him.

“Of course I am. You watch us run.”


End file.
